Topic: French scramble weight?

[bat20]

Hi all,I bought this weight with a small collection of others and i'm fairly certain French and old with a lot of wear and a shallow polished Pontil,it's about 3" wd,2.5"ht,any ideas on the maker, many thanks,in the centre of one of the photos there seems to be the letters c p h in white on black,but that maybe a cane gone wrong.
   

[KevinH]

I am not sure if this is French or not.

The "CPH" (in the centre of the second photo?) looks like cane slippage rather than letters.

Could you please provide photos of the full weight showing:
a) top view, straight on
b) side view straight on
c) angled base view to show any outer "basal rim" as well as the the polished area

[bat20]

Ok will do Kevin,I hope your thinking Bohemian and not East Peckham 

[tropdevin]

***

Hi.  The canes and fragments look like Saint-Louis to me - I think it is one of their scrambles.   These vary in content,  from fairly small fragments of cane and tube (like this one) through to lots of whole twists, tubes and cane pieces and (occasionally) a  few silhouette canes for good measure!  You can also find bits of aventurine in them sometimes.

Alan

[bat20]

Thanks Alan,I was thinking St. Louis myself,no tittering please!,mainly because the size dimensions are the same as an example in one of my books,sadly no picture canes but lots of lovely things going on keeping me absorbed for hours and having never really held a weight like this before the heaviness surprised me,here are the other photos as promised.

[KevinH]

Thanks for the extra photos. I am now happy enough that Alan is correct with Saint-Louis.

The straight-on profile view simply looks "right" to me, even though I have personally seen few Saint-Louis weights in the hand and very few scrambled examples. In fact, the main books do not show many examples of the Saint-Louis scrambled weights.

However, there are cane structures and colours that seem right - especially with the "salmon pink" colour and cog canes with 14 teeth (not solely exclusive to Saint-Louis but a good indicator).

[bat20]

Thanks Kevin,there's one in my book,World Paperweights Millefiori & Lampwork by Robert G Hall,with about the same dimensions, silhouettes and aventurine,must be a very rare one I would imagine.

[tropdevin]

***

Hi.  I think there are few in the books because the authors find them relatively unappealing (like Baccarat rock grounds, for example).  In my experience they are not as common as Clichy scrambles, but turn up maybe as often as Baccarat macedoine examples.  However, the Saint-Louis ones vary more in size (from mini to large).  Of those I have had, maybe a third have had a silhouette or two. Here is an image of one I had with 3 silhouettes and aventurine.

Alan.

[bat20]

What a lovely example and thanks for showing Alan,got to say I like them and I can't stop studying mine which everyone else in the household are finding a bit odd.